AHA Books Bookshelf

Welcome to the bookshelf of AHA Books!

Here, without any dust on the shelves, you can find the current catalog of available AHA Books which you can easily order or you can enjoy new books never published in paper versions by reading them for free or you can download AHA Books which are now out of print.

Available Paper Publications of:

TANKA

circus cover

Circus Forever. Poetry by Jane Reichhold with pen and ink drawings by Hans-Peter Goettsche. Perfect bound, 10 x 7, 86 pp., $20 ppd. AHA Books or order from Lulu.com or Amazon.com. One day in 1990 Jane went to the Pickle Family circus in Bower Park outside of Gualala. She sent the poems she wrote that day to Hans-Peter Goettsche, and artist in Berlin who had gone to art school with her husband Werner. These are the drawings Peter made using the poems as inspiration to remember all his own ideas about the circus. The combination of poems and pictures will make you laugh and cry as you think about the human condition.

Great excitement comes with this book, the first tanka anthology in English with poets from seventeen countries represented with their very best works. The pioneers of tanka writing are all gathered to show how this form is being adapted into English. A thrill to read how a form changes the way these poets are seeing their worlds. Introduction by Jane Reichhold brings both history and how-to of tanka.

	Wind Five Folded. Editors Jane & Werner Reichhold. Hardcover, 5 x 8, 256 pp., $15.00 ppd., AHA Books, ISBN: 0-944676-21-9.
	In The Presence by Jane and Werner Reichhold. Perfect bound, 8.5 x 5.5, 126 pp., $10.00 ppd. ISBN: 0-944676-22-7. This is a collection of tanka prepared as a gift to the Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, Crown Prince Naruhito and Princess Masako of Japan when the Reichholds were invited to the New Year's Poetry Party at the Palace in Tokyo in 1998. The book contains all the tanka from Jane's now out of print A Gift of Tanka, plus the new stage play, Bowls I Buy. Werner is represented with seventeen of his tanka sequences.
	Twenty Years Tanka Splendor. Jane Reichhold, editor. Perfect bound, 5.5 x 8.5, 85 pages, $10 ppd. This celebration of twenty years of this tanka contest brings the winning poems and poets of 2009 as well as the lists of all the winning poets and judges over the years. The book concludes with a history of the contest. Also available in this series: Tanka Splendor - 1995. Saddle-stapled, 5 x 8, 44 pp, $5.00 ppd. Judged by Larry Gross. Tanka Splendor - 1997. Saddle-stapled, 5 x 8, 44 pp, $5.00 ppd. Judged by George Swede. Tanka Splendor - 1998. Saddle-stapled, 5 x 8, 44 pp, $5.00 ppd. Judged by Hatsue Kawamura of Tokyo, Japan. Tanka Splendor - 1999. Saddle-stapled, 5 x 8, 44 pp, $5.00 ppd. Judged by Tom Clausen.
	A String of Flowers, Untied. . . Love Poems from the Tale of Genji. Translated by Jane Reichhold and Hatsue Kawamura. Stone Bridge Press: 2003. $18.95. Perfect bound, 238 pages, 450 poems in romaji and English. This book not only brings you the poems from the famous Japanese classic story The Tale of Genji as tanka, but shows the settings surrounding each if the poems and explains how the poem works and why. Each chapter is summarized and the characters explained so that you have, in addition to the poems, an abridged version of the story.
	Breasts of Snow Fumiko Nakajo: Her tanka and her life. Written by Hatsue Kawamura and Jane Reichhold. The Japan Times:2004. Perfect bound, 152 pp., kanji, romaji and English of 153 tanka with notes biographical material. $20.00. The last book of translation by this pair. It was Hatsue-san's heart goal to bring the lovely poems of Fumiko Nakajo to English readers. She picked the poems and together we worked to bring not only the poems, but also to make real the life of this fascinating woman.
	Geography Lens. Jane Reichhold. Hardcover, 5 x 8, 100 pp., $10.00 ppd. AHA Books: 2000. ISBN: 0-944676-44-8. This is a work of memory with tanka set in some unusual ways so that the form changes according the landscapes of past sexual abuse. This is an attempt to write out the ghosts by acknowledging a common history with so many others. structures of a family tree graphics show pairs of people finger bones of a child seeking an uncle doing yoga limbers his spine

Shining Moments. Father Neal Henry Lawrence. Hardcover with dust jacket, 5 x 8, 144 pages, Foreword by Edward Seidensticker, and Introductions by Atsuo Nakagawa, Marie Philoméne, Toshimi Horiuchi and Father Lawrence. Illustrations in sumi-e by Mrs. Keiko Kaneda. AHA Books, 1993. ISBN: 0-944676-39-1. $12.00 ppd.

This, the third book of tanka by Father Lawrence, brings 218 of his best poems in a beautiful volume fitting for the elegance of his work. Father Lawrence, of St. Anselm's St. Benedictine Priory in Tokyo, Japan, has been writing tanka for nearly 20 years and is one of the leaders in the traditional 5-7-5-7-7 style in English.

Through crystal windows
Beauty of cherry blossoms
Fill my heart with joy
Yet when my eyes looked beneath
Fallen petals saddened me.

Note: Father Lawrence now has a website.

OUT OF PRINT

White Letter Poems. Fumi Saito. Translated by Hatsue Kawamura and Jane Reichhold. 100 tanka from Saito's 11 poetry collections. Perfect bound, 8.5 x 5.5, 128 pp., biography. ISBN: 0-944676-23-5. $10.00 ppd. AHA Books. Fumi Saito was the Poet Laureate of Japan in 1997, chosen for her contribution to tanka literature. Her poems spanning the beginning of WWII to the present, bring the unique woman's voice to the changes of the times, not only for her country, but for herself. Greatly beloved by her people, Fumi Saito takes tanka writing to new levels in both Japanese and now in English. The first poem in the book from which the title was taken. Fumi also means 'letter' in Japanese.

a white letter
arriving tomorrow
spring comes
a thin glass also
waiting to be polished

Heavenly Maiden Tanka by Akiko Baba, translated into English by Hatsue Kawamura and Jane Reichhold. ISBN: 0-944676-42-1,AHA Books: 1999. Perfect bound, 124 pp., 5.5 x 8.5 inches. $10.00 ppd. Akiko Baba is famous in Japan for several reasons: her research and books published on Noh theater, her plays written and performed in the Tokyo theater, her regular appearances on TV to lecture on Noh theater and for the other lover of her life - tanka. Sixteen collections of her tanka have been published and awarded distinguished awards and citations but this is the first time a collection of her tanka are available in English.

one tree
having no chance to talk
to another
sprouts leaves along the roadside
with a determined expression

OUT OF PRINT!
Salad Anniversary by Machi Tawara translated by Jack Stamm. Published in Tokyo, 1987. Paper bound, 4.5 x 6 inches, kanji, and English. $7.00 ppd. Machi Tawara's book, which has sold over 10 million copies is now available again in Jack Stamm's translations. Stamm has successfully brought 2/3 of the tanka from Salad Anniversary in a correct tanka form of five lines. This classic is not distributed elsewhere in USA.

No way of telling
whether your words were loaded
as you seemed to be.
Anyhow, I sit and wait
for the phone to ring.

HAIKU

Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-on Guide written by Jane Reichhold. Kodansha International: 2003. Gated perfect bound, 166 pp., color cover, $16.00. Proclaimed by many to be the best book to describe how to write haiku, tanka and renga, this book also has advice on how get published, how to manage readings and other hints on sharing haiku. An inspiring book no writer should be without.

Moving Stillness by David Samuel Bloch and illustrated with 22 black and white prints of carvings by Julie Hagen Bloch. Haiku in 575 syllables with spirit and love. Hard cover with dust jacket, 8.5 x 5.5, 192 pp., $22.00 ppd. Order from AHA Books or Julie Bloch, R.D.1, Box 9A, Hurleyville, NY 12747. Art and haiku reach new levels of integration and inspiration in this collaboration by this talented pair. David has been writing outstanding haiku for ten years in his own very strong voice. One of the few persons to stay with the traditional 5-7-5 syllable count, yet his work bounces with life and joy. You will find yourself smiling and nodding yes as you read his haiku. Julie has drawn and carved a new set of illustrations just for this book. If you know her artwork from the other books you are in for a big surprise as her abilities and vision reach new heights.

Nothing corresponds
with its last known location
- our buried mailbox

OUT-OF-PRINT
A Moon in Each Eye. Charles Dickson. Trade paperback, 5 x 8, 80 pp., AHA Books, 1993. ISBN: 0-944676-95-2.

Charles B. Dickson and his wonderful haiku cannot be forgotten. Now, nearly two years after his sudden death, vincent tripi has made a selection of Charlie's best and best-known haiku into this collection. Charles Dickson was the poet who single-handedly brought nature back into haiku with his deep appreciation of his native Georgia.
: beside the bayou
the old woman baits her hook
gray Spanish moss

OUT-OF-PRINT
Wind in the Trees by David Elliott. Saddle-stapled, 11 x 4.5, 40 pp., AHA Books, 1992. ISBN: 0-944676-33-2.

Selected as the most promising haiku book-author, Elliott's work combines experienced haiku thinking with a poet's vision. The ten poem sequences celebrate birth, death, childhood and growing up in the everyday life. This is the book to have if you are interested in writing sequences.
: A summer moon
the slow breathing
of her eighth-month belly

OUT-OF-STOCK -
FIELD: A Haiku Circle. Don Eulert takes the reader through the year with 365 haiku from his farm in Southern California. Excellent haiku, beautifully made book. Perfect bound, 5.5 x 8.5, 200 pp., Don, with James Bull, started the very first haiku magazine in North America in 1967. Time has only made him a better writer and sharper observer.

if not for the path
this patch of four o'clocks
would go everywhere

The Land of Seven Realms. Haiku Writers of Gualala Arts. Edited by Jane Reichhold. Perfect bound, two-color cover, 72 pp., $10.00 ppd. AHA Books, 1988. ISBN:0-944676-05-7. Proceeds benefit Gualala Arts. An elegy to the place the Gualala River flows through the various realms of the region: sea, shore, redwood forests, rivers, mountains, skies, and people at home to focus the collected haiku of a tiny seaside village. Each section is headed by an informative and lyrical introduction followed by the haiku. This is a very professional community cooperative effort combining paint, poems, and photos by folks age five to 83. Biographies of each author or artist lets the reader also get acquainted personally with those who have chosen to live and create in a very special place.

Handshake. Werner Reichhold. Perfect bound, 128 pp., 7.5 x 8.5, $11.50 ppd. AHA Books, 1989. ISBN:0-944676-11-1. Merit Book Award Haiku Society of America. Beautifully produced, this unique combination of art catalog and haiku book is receiving the highest praise. Combining Reichhold's unique drawings with his plans for installations and haiku printed on gray, textured paper and perfect bound in a silver cover, this book adds a new concept to haiku books.

Gong
thunder and lightning
shaking hands

Tidalwave. Werner Reichhold. 170 pp., 8 x 11, perfect bound $11.50 ppd. AHA Books, 1989. ISBN:0-944676-12-X. Werner Reichhold has expanded the beginnings made in Handshake into a masterpiece of haiku, photomontage, and drawings. Energy linked between the haiku and artwork to interact with the reader.

petals the candle flames lit by spring

RENGA

Narrow Road to Renga. Jane Reichhold with Twenty Pilgrims. Perfect bound, 5 x 8, 260 pp., $12.95 ppd., AHA Books, 1989. ISBN: 0-944676-19-7.

This first anthology of English renga offers work with twenty authors in partnership with Jane Reichhold. Doing traditional 36 stanza kasen renga, tan renga, net renga, pyramid renga, and book renga, this group dazzles with virtuosity and accomplishment. Comprehensive how-to instructions precede each chapter. Authors of the renga have written commentary describing background and experiences while doing the poems. Also included are biographical notes on each author. If you are interested in learning about renga, this book leads the way.

MIXED GENRES

The years of writing haiku, renga and tanka are clearly evident as Reichhold tells these 21 tales of mystery and enlightenment. Teaching tales from other realms; this is not a book you would expect from her, but upon reading it you can hear her vision.

Wave of Mouth Stories. Jane Reichhold. Trade paperback, 5 x 8, 182 pp., $9.00 ppd. AHA Books, 1993. ISBN: 0-944676-09-X.

A Film of Words by Jane and Werner Reichhold. Perfect bound, 7 x 9 inches, color cover, 108 pages, $12.ppd. A print version of the online book of the same name with the addition of the play "Roar."

afow

In this newest book by Werner Reichhold haiku, tanka and renga are integrated to build a new structure for poetic language. Over fifty longer poems demonstrate Reichhold's imagery with innovation and vision.

On a yellow shoe
the sun enters a wooden house.
Sleepless footprint,
she walks the way
a bird egg curves

Werner Reichhold continues the themes of multi-layered haiku and tanka, joining together into sequences and leaping out of photomontage images begun in Tidalwave. In keeping with the title, many of the poems are also translated into French, German, Italian, Hebrew, and Arabic. A big book for world-wide journeys.

In this book, text and picture are a two-fold event. You are invited to experiment with the energies released by looking at a collage juxtaposed to poetry. Opposite methods are used with the intention the reader / viewer may enjoy putting them together and find out what the "collaboration of languages" activates or stimulates.

orphaned honey
tongue on a journey's
licking lips

Layers of Content. Werner Reichhold. Perfect bound paperback with color cover, 128 pp., 5 x 8, $8.00 ppd. AHA Books, 1993. ISBN: 0-944676-15-4.

Bridge of Voices. Werner Reichhold. Perfect bound, 8 x 11; 140 pp., $11.50 ppd. AHA Books, 1990. ISBN:0-944676-13-8.

Sensescapes. Werner Reichhold. AHA Books, 1991. Flat-spine, 11 x 17, 64pp., $8.00 ppd. ISBN: 0-944676-14-6.

Symbiotic Art. Werner Reichhold. German text with English preface to 70 full color reproductions of collages. Perfect bound, 8 x 11 inches, 96 pages, $25 ppd.

AHA Books

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While you wait for your paper books, here are the free online books for you to enjoy!

Online Books are listed alphabetically by the author's last name.

Brooks, Randy. Black Ant's Journey to Japan . *new*
The Black Ant is really (and I am giving nothing away) Randy Brooks of Brooks Books who made a real trip to Japan (and has the photos to prove it) accompanied by his own tanka.

Conforti, Gerard John, For My Brother Victor & Elsa His Wife new
In 2000 Gerard Conforti learned that his last surviving brother had been operated on for cancer. All of Conforti's feelings and attention flew to his brother's side in the form of these tanka.

Doe, Jane Apples, Stars and Ovaries 2010.

Doty, Gene. Zero (ghazals) *brand new*
When we took over Lynx in 1992 there was an article on writing ghazals. The interest in the form has grown, especially since Robert Bly has gotten on the bandwagon. But from the beginning it was Gene Doty who wrote his own poems in this genre. Zero also contains Gene's definition of the form and has links to his Ghazal pages on the web as well exploring the hypertext advantages of an online book.

Goldstein, Sanford. At the Hut of the Small Mind *reprint*
You know how famous Professor Goldstein is for his translations of Japanese poets (Aikiko Yosano's Tangled Hair, Ishikawa Takuboku's Sad Toys, Mokichi Saito's Red Lights, and and) yet here is a chance to read his own personal tanka. His sequence tells the story of his several-day visit in 1982 to Matsuyama on Shikoku Island to the farms of Masanobu Fukuoka, the author of The One Straw Revolution.

Tanka Splendor 1990 Judged by Sanford Goldstein. *reprint*
Not only can you read the winning poems, and see who wrote them, but this version also includes the essay by Professor Goldstein.

Tanka Splendor 1994 Judged by Geraldine C. Little *reprint*
Geraldine's comments in this book become, now that she has passed away, even more relevant to the story of her life and to her own tanka.

Tanka Splendor 1996 Judged by Leza Lowitz *reprint*
Leza Lowitz, the editor and translator of A Long Rainy Season (Stone Bridge Press) a popular anthology of tanka and haiku by Japanese women lends her expertise to judging the tanka of this contest. See her picks and read her words of wisdom.

Tanka Splendor 2000 Judged by the participants. *new*

Tanka Splendor 2001 Judged by the participants. *new*

Tanka Splendor 2002 Judged by the participants. *new*

Tanka Splendor 2003 Judged by the participants. *new*

Tanka Splendor 2004 Judged by the participants. *new*

Tanka Splendor 2005 Judged by the participants. *new*

Galmitz, Jack. The Effects of Light *new*
A first book of haiku that shows great promise. This former New Yorker shows that haiku can be found and celebrated in an urban setting.

Holley, Anna. White Crow Haiku *reprint*
It is believed by many, that if there is such a thing as reincarnation, that Anna Holley is a returned poetry mistress from Japan. No one approaches her ability to take haiku techniques into this day and age with such surety and agility.

R. G. Rader. Raising the Blade :Collected Haiku & Tanka, 1980 - 2000 *new*
R.G. Rader was very active in the early years of haiku but went on to writing and acting in plays, but still the hold of the Japanese genres stayed with him. Raising the Blade takes these forms to the edge of modern writing with his contemporary images and situations.

Reichhold, Jane A Dictionary of Haiku Classified by Season Words with Traditional and Modern Methods *reprint*
This classic is now out-of-print, but through the magic of the web the complete book (even revised to catch those pesky goofs) is now available for you to revisit your own world and seasons through her over 5,000 haiku.

Reichhold, Jane. Bowls I Buy *reprint*
A stage presentation of tanka written for several voices, in really weird costumes. Yet the tanka all sound very apt.

Reichhold, Jane. Banana Skies -- A One-Act Play -in 10 Scenes. While reading Basho's famous travel diary, Journey to the Far North (or Narrow Road to the Interior) Jane got the idea of making this a play. With the ingenious use of one stage setting in ten scenes you can travel the many miles Basho (Banana) and his friend Sora (Sky) wandered through northern Japan in 1689. This story dares to show the real story behind Basho's highly revised account.

Reichhold, Jane. Gift of Tanka *reprint*
Jane's first book of tanka, now out-of-print is available right here. Enjoy!

Reichhold, Jane. Journal Journeys *new*
A collection of journals illustrated with haiku, tanka and photographs. Here is where you will find the HAWAI with HEIDI and the trip to the talking giants as well as ceremonies done with Martin Prechtel.

Reichhold, Jane. Those Women Writing Haiku
This is the big book of and about women who have been ignored in the haiku and tanka scenes, not only in North America, but in Europe and Japan. Each chapter of historical facts is accompanied by an anthology of works by the authors described. Unfortunately, in spite of the greatest of efforts, we never found a publisher, so the book lives on here in the web!

Reichhold, Werner. Cybertry *new*, Cybertry Part II A *new*, Cybertry Part II B *new*, Cybertry Part III *new*, Cybertry Part IV *new*.
Again and again, Werner Reichhold breaks down the barriers between the genres to mix and match ideas, feelings, insights, word-play, in poems that float gently into your mind. There are no holds barred here.

Reichhold, Werner Symbiotic Poetry
If you are interested in renga or other collaborative writing, this anthology is not to be missed. Not only are there discussions of this most interesting avenue of writing, but each poem will either teach you, thrill you or make you wish to find a writing partner. Every one who is someone in collaborative writing is here.

Rielly, Edward J. How Sky Holds the Sun *brand new*
Edward Rielly chairs the English Department at Saint Joseph's College in Maine, where, among other courses, he teaches creative writing. He has previously published six chapbooks of poetry, four of which were haiku. He is currently working on a book of poetry about the Vietnam War.

Tachibana, Fujio The Wail of Gaea *new*
As Akiko Ishimaru, Professor of Japanese Literature, Tokyo Keizai University writes in the Preface to The Wail of Gaea: ". . .and this presents the attitude of living in the arrogance of roses, refusing a life of peace and happiness. It also represents the shadow of a pure sadness as well. Widely different from the snugly united tanka poems, Fujio's tanka poems devotedly continue to pursue the arrogance of roses, and at the risk of her life, to involve a kind of danger and distress. Fujio has a natural talent to compose tanka poems."

Take a look on the The Bookrack for other books.

	JUST PUBLISHED! March, 2008
	Ten Years Haikujane. Jane Reichhold. Perfect bound, 8 x 5 inches, Preface by Jeffrey Woodward. $12. postpaid in USA. Email for other rates. Since 1992 a haiku from Jane Reichhold has appeared in the personal column of the Independent Coast Observer, the local weekly newspaper under the nom de plume Haikujane. In *Ten Years Haikujane* the haiku from 1999 - 2008 are compiled into one book.